Nearly half of the 669 school districts are proposing tax levy increases that go right up to the cap, according to an analysis by The Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank. A total of 309 districts are at the cap limit. The center claims this fact is evidence that school districts would have proposed higher levy increases without the cap. Read More
Tag: Mental Health
New Yorkers who haven't yet filed their 2014 tax returns are about to be reminded that the Empire State's income tax form is more cluttered than ever -- thanks, in part, to a proliferation of voluntary contribution "check-off" boxes. Since the establishment of the "Return a Gift to Wildlife" fund in 1982, the list of check-offs has expand to 10 causes, including cancer research, veterans remembrance and the development of the 9/11 memorial. As if that wasn't enough, some mental health groups want lawmakers to approve an eleventh checkoff, this one to be known as "Gift for Eliminating the Stigma Relating to Mental Illness." Read More
Perhaps the most consequential proposed legislation to fly almost completely under news media radar at the end of session has been a bipartisan bill that would amend and upgrade Kendra’s Law, which allows judges in certain situations to force people with serious mental illness to undergo treatment. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo is pushing the broadest and most concerted facility downsizing effort by any New York governor in recent history, as noted here last summer. In addition to prison closures and consolidations, the governor has proposed shutting down nine psychiatric centers for the acutely mentally ill, consolidating a new institutional network of “Regional Centers of Excellence,” and shifting more of the Office of Mental Health (OMH) budget to”community-based” services. Read More
That's the argument in this provocative City Journal essay by D.J. Jaffe, who says the "skewed priorities" of the state Office of Mental Health are actually preventing the delivery of adequate care to the most seriously mentally ill. Jaffe warns that... Read More